travelled, the country roads were scoured by outriders, whose duty it was to protect him from the gaze of the vulgar. He died at his seat of Petworth, Sussex, on 2 Dec. 1748, and he was buried in Salisbury Cathedral, where a statue by Rysbrack surmounts a clumsy Latin epitaph. The following is Macky's description of 1702, the interpolation being Swift's: ‘Of a middle stature, well shaped, a very black complexion, a lover of music and poetry, of good judgement [not a grain, hardly common sense], but by reason of a great hesitation in his speech wants expression.’ He appears in history as a well-meaning man of slender understanding. He was a member of the Kit-Cat Club, and the portrait by Kneller, in a full-bottomed wig, with the order of the Garter, has been engraved by Simon, and by Holl for Lodge's ‘Portraits,’ and others. There are two portraits by Lely of the first duchess, which have often been engraved.
Somerset's first wife died on 23 Nov. 1722, leaving Algernon, earl of Hertford, afterwards seventh duke [see below], two other sons, and three daughters: Elizabeth, who married Henry O'Brien, earl of Thomond; Catharine, who married Sir William Wyndham; and Anne, who married Peregrine Osborne, afterwards duke of Leeds. The duke married, secondly, on 4 Feb. 1725–6, Charlotte, third daughter of Daniel Finch, second earl of Nottingham, by whom he had issue: Frances, who married John Manners, marquis of Granby [q. v.], and Charlotte, who married Heneage Finch, earl of Aylesford. The second duchess died at Sutton Court, Chiswick, on 21 Jan. 1773.
The eldest son, Algernon Seymour, seventh Duke (1684–1750), born 11 Nov. 1684, joined the army under Marlborough at Brussels in May 1708, and bore the despatch to the queen after Oudenarde in the following November. Early next year he became colonel of the 15th foot, was promoted captain and colonel of the 2nd troop of horse-guards in 1715, colonel of the regiment in 1740, general of the horse and governor of Minorca from 1737 to 1742. On the death of his mother, in 1722, Lord Hertford wrongly assumed the title of Baron Percy (cf. G. E. C., Peerage); and in 1749, a year after his father's death, he was created Earl of Northumberland. He married in 1713 Frances, eldest daughter and coheir of Henry Thynne (only son and heir of Thomas, first viscount Weymouth). She was a lady of the bedchamber to Queen Caroline, and aspired to the patronage of learning. She corresponded with Henrietta Louisa Fermor, countess of Pomfret [q. v.], and Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe [q. v.] (her letters were edited by William Bingley, 1805, 12mo), entertained Thomson and Shenstone at Alnwick, and in March 1728 was instrumental in procuring the pardon for homicide of Richard Savage [q. v.] Thomson dedicated his poem ‘Spring’ to her in 1727. She was buried beside her husband, in Westminster Abbey, on 20 July 1754.
Upon the death of the seventh duke, on 7 Feb. 1750, without surviving male issue, a great dispersion of his various titles took place. The barony of Percy went to his daughter, Lady Elizabeth Seymour; the earldom of Northumberland to his son-in-law, Sir Hugh Smithson Percy [q. v.]; the earldom of Egremont (cr. 1749) to his nephew, Sir Charles Wyndham; while a remote cousin, Sir Edward Seymour (1695?–1757), grandson of Sir Edward, the speaker and fourth baronet [q. v.], became eighth duke of Somerset [see under Seymour, Edward Adolphus, eleventh Duke].
[Collins's Peerage, 1779, ii. 469; G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage, s.v. ‘Somerset;’ De Fonblanque's House of Percy; Luttrell's Brief Hist. Narration; Evelyn's Diary; Reresby's Diary; Dryden's Works, ed. Scott and Saintsbury; Swift's Works, ed. Scott; Memoirs of the Kit-Cat Club, 1821; Boyer's Annals of Queen Anne; Wentworth's Journal, passim; Marlborough Despatches, ed. Murray, iv. passim; Walpole's Correspondence, ed. Cunningham, vols. i. and ii.; Wyon's Hist. of Queen Anne; Lingard's Hist. of England; Aungier's Syon Monastery, p. 113; Jesse's Court of England, 1688–1760; Craik's Romance of the Peerage; Wheatley and Cunningham's London Past and Present; Burke's Romance of the Peerage, i. 12; Collect. Topogr. et Geneal. v. 346.]
SEYMOUR, EDWARD, first Earl of Hertford and Duke of Somerset (1506?–1552), the Protector, was the eldest surviving son of Sir John Seymour (1476?–1536) of Wolf Hall, Wiltshire. The Seymours claimed descent from a companion of William the Conqueror, who took his name from St. Maur-sur-Loire in Touraine, and was ancestor of William de St. Maur, who in 1240 held the manors of Penhow and Woundy in Monmouthshire (cf. J. R. Planché in Journ. Archæol. Assoc. xiii. 327–8). William's great-grandson, Sir Roger de St. Maur, had two sons: John, whose granddaughter conveyed these manors by marriage into the family of Bowlay of Penhow, who bore the Seymour arms; and Sir Roger (fl. 1360), who married Cicely, eldest sister and heir of John de Beauchamp, baron Beauchamp de Somerset (d. 1361); she brought to the Seymours the manor of Hache, Somerset,
